Taking a chronological approach, this book challenges established economistic and ideologistic narratives of neoliberalism in Britain by charting the gradual diffusion of an increasingly interventionist neoliberal governmental rationality in British politics since the late 1970s, and the various means by which the project has furnished itself with a hegemonic basis for its popular support.
Spanning five decades of British political history and drawing on rich empirical evidence to bring conceptual clarity to, and chart the effects of, a style of government bound up with a host of epochal changes, it concludes by considering Brexit and the rise of Corbynism as the final act in the neoliberal saga. It then poses the question, Is British politics on the verge of a major reconstruction representing a decisive rejection of neoliberalism?
This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of British politics and neoliberalism, liberalism and, more broadly to political theory, political economy and public policy.
1. Introduction 2. Thatcherism, Authoritarian Populism and ‘Roll-back’ Neoliberalism 3. New Labour, 'Modernisation' and ‘Roll-out’ Neoliberalism 4. The Big Society and Neoliberalism after the Crash 5. Conclusion: Explaining Neoliberal Resilience
Biography
Christopher Byrne is Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences, Leeds Beckett University, UK.
